James Hamilton, 1st Duke of Hamilton

Sir James Hamilton, 1st Duke of Hamilton (19 June 1606-9 March 1649) was a member of the Order of the Garter and a Scottish nobleman. In 1631-1634 he fought alongside Sweden in the Thirty Years War and in the 1640s he fought for the House of Stuart during the English Civil Wars. Because he was Charles I of England's chief minister for Scotland, he was executed in 1649 by the English Commonwealth.

== Biography ==

James Hamilton was from Lanarkshire, and after the death of his great uncle he became Earl of Arran. After the death of the Prince of Wales in 1612, Hamilton seemed a likely candidate to the throne of Scotland as heir presumptive after Charles Stuart. He became a man of favor with King James I of England/James VI of Scotland, and after the death of the Marquis of Hamilton in 1625, King James placed James Hamilton in that title.

In 1631, Hamilton headed to Germany to fight in the Thirty Years War for the Protestant alliance. He fought under Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden in the First Battle of Breitenfeld in 1631 and he occupied Magdeburg, but his army was decimated by hunger and disease and in 1634 he returned home, with the expedition failed.

During the politcal trouble between Presbyterian Covenanters and Episcopalian Royalists in Scotland, Hamilton supported King Charles' Royalists against the Covenanters. In 1642 he worked to prevent Scottish involvement in the First English Civil War, and in 1643 was made the Duke of Hamilton. As Charles' right-hand man in Scotland, Hamilton was labeled as a traitor to Scotland and executed in 1649 during the Second English Civil War.